


Heading Home Again

by tazia101



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Steven Universe Fusion, Fusion, M/M, Multi, OT3, Shenanigans, Winter Soldier Bucky (briefly), five and one fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-11-15 23:52:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18083372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tazia101/pseuds/tazia101
Summary: Five Times Steve Rogers Fused With Someone (+1 Time He Fused With Two People)Fusion:the process by which two friends or lovers stand across from each other and dance, each following the other's lead, until their differences are lost and they share one heart, one body, one mind. It is the most intimate experience one person can share with another.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from a Mary Oliver poem called [ 'Wild Geese' ](http://www.phys.unm.edu/~tw/fas/yits/archive/oliver_wildgeese.html)

There were two kinds of fusion. 

The first was the fusion of soldiers and sportsmen: trained synchronicity, easy camaraderie, a shared purpose that let you slip together until your hands reached out to the same goal and you inhabited the same skin: stronger and faster, better in every way for sharing hands, sharing eyes, sharing strength and will. 

The second was the hallowed, the honored, the fusion of dance. Two friends or two lovers would stand across from each other and move in circles until their differences slipped away, until their bodies learned to move in tandem, until each conformed to the other like the skyline and the mountains, their hearts beating as one.

It wasn’t something that every pair could accomplish, and it was seen with honor, respect, and awe.

Proposing fusion to a loved one was an intimate step to a relationship, and the first attempt was always nerve-wracking, since it wasn’t often successful.

But Steve and Bucky had never had to worry about that.

They had fused for the first time as young teens, by accident, rough-housing in the backyard. They had run inside, Steve’s asthma tightening their chest, and Bucky’s mam had scooped them up into a hug. Her embrace had been familiar and strange, because they were taller, and new, and nothing was really familiar at all.

Then she had sat them down and given them an explanation, told them that instead of Bucky and Steve they were now BuckyandSteve, a new person with a world to explore. So she told them to go run and play and they _had_ , and people on the sidewalks had turned to watch them go, a young fusion so rare, and so new, and so full of joy.

Steve and Bucky had fused to fight the bullies, and they had fused to sleep, and they had fused so that their body would be able to cope with Steve’s frequent bouts of illness, Bucky’s strength helping him to get through some of the worst days.

Steve knew Bucky just as well as he knew himself, and something being Steve Rogers felt more like being half of BuckyandSteve.

Steve sketched their shared body from memories of looking at themself in the mirror, and traced the lines of his nose, Bucky’s jaw, their mouth so well blended that he couldn’t tell if one of them was favored in it.

Usually they found themselves fusing quietly, the feeling so familiar that it could be brought about by something as simple as Bucky pulling Steve a little closer at night, and suddenly their arms were wrapped around themself, laughing at their selves.

But once in a blue moon they would fuse formally: they would stand across from each other in their shared apartment and put on a scratchy record, or Bucky would sing a song he’d heard at a dance hall, and they would move towards each other, slow at first then faster, hands catching at hands and pulling body against body until there was only what was shared.

* * *

Then Bucky left for war, and Steve was made into Captain America.

 _Stronger than a fusion_ , the press called him. Steve wasn’t so sure about that.

There was fusion in the war, of course: the fusion in the battlefield, as many soldiers coming together as they could without falling apart, creating huge walls of armor and arms and single-minded anger. But in the nights the men would dance in their tents and go to sleep with two minds as one, the nightmares so much easier when they were shared.

* * *

And then Bucky was gone, falling into the mist, and Steve was no longer a half of anything. 

After that, he wasn’t much of anything for a while except cold.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve visits Peggy

The 21st century was complicated. There were too many things to keep track of, and too many things that had changed in imperceptible ways he wasn’t sure he could explain. The city moved too fast around him, the lights were brighter and harsher and inescapable, and there were so many years of missed history and literature and television and news stories that Steve felt like he was drowning in information.

Mostly, though, Steve just missed the people. Waking up in an unfamiliar world, he found it populated by strangers and the children of people who used to be friends. So when he learned that Peggy was alive, he called a taxi and he didn’t look back.

* * *

 

Peggy was old, and her skin felt like rose petals. Her eyes were sometimes distant, and wrinkles spread from them like starbursts. Steve had never been more aware of his own body, the way that his skin was unmarked by the years he had lost. Peggy had married. She had lived a life. Steve had been frozen.

“I know I’m a little late, but… do you still want that dance?” Steve asked. It wasn’t quite overstepping, with the way they had been, but it had been so many years since then, and it was early in the conversation. He didn’t know until the question dropped from his lips that it was the reason he’d come, and he shot an anxious look at Peggy. Her eyes showed nothing but understanding.

“I don’t know if I can anymore,” she said.

“I’ll help,” Steve promised, and held out a hand.

Peggy took it.

She was shaky on her feet and Steve wrapped an arm around her back, letting her put her feet on top of his like a young girl learning to waltz for the first time, spun around the kitchen by her father.

Steve rested his cheek against hers, feeling that paper-thin delicate skin, and began to sway. Peggy moved with him the best she could, but Steve could tell right away that things were wrong. He had too much control, and she had none.

After a few slow circles, swaying from foot to foot, Peggy began to hum a soft tune that Steve couldn’t quite place, tapping her fingers to the beat on Steve’s shoulder-blades. Eagerly, he fell into her rhythm, closing his eyes. It changed, and he matched it. The next time her song changed, he was already matching it, and they were whirling around the room, his eyes closed and hers open, everything so clear and visible-

“Ah!” said the person who was and was not Steve, who was and was not Peggy. “St- Peggy- we’re-“ They enjoyed the feeling of fusion, a rush of relief and affection. They hadn’t- neither of them had fused in so long, and the memories rushed back, their-Peggy’s husband mixing with the soldiers they-Steve remembered from the war. And the time they had spent without, quiet in their own mind, but alone.

_Together_. The new person brought up their hands, trying to figure out who they were.

They were old. Sorrow shot through them, mixed with peaceful understanding. Their hands were wrinkled and their joints ached, but underneath there was a strange/familiar strength humming in their muscles, an energy sparking potential through their body.

“Let’s go for a walk,” they said, and accepted their own suggestion.

* * *

 

The sunlight was new again, the flowers more beautiful than ever. They walked together, by themself, into the garden behind the home. There were a few people there, sitting on the benches with their faces tilted up to the afternoon sun. One person recognized Peggy and waved: they waved back, smiling. 

There was another fusion in the garden, too. An old couple that they recognized: Peggy had seen them around often.

“Hey JaneandBetty!” they said as they came closer.

“You’re new!” the other fusion said, coming to a stop. JaneandBetty didn’t like to be unfused, and Peggy rarely saw her separated. The less time they had left together, the less they wanted to be apart. The new fusion understood that. “Peggy I know: who’s your other half?”

“Steve,” they said, the name familiar and distant and filled with a thousand memories.

“Well then,” said JaneandBetty, “it’s good to meet you, PeggyandSteve.”

“You as well,” PeggyandSteve smiled. “I’ll see you around.”

“You better!” JaneandBetty wandered on down the path, holding a flower in each of her hands. PeggyandSteve decided that they liked the other fusion.

Newly named, they walked on, thinking about who they were. They felt a kind of call pulling at them, but they weren’t sure of what it wanted. There was a sense of exhaustion, a heavy feeling of needing to be somewhere else.

_I am displaced_ , they thought. _I am out of time, and I miss my family. I miss who I was when I was with them_. Other fusions danced through their memories, other people they had been, other bodies they had known fleetingly. _I want to do more good, but I am tired_. They sat down on one of the benches, rested their elbows on their knees. _I should be somewhere else, but I can’t go back._

Their heart was heavy, and suddenly they wanted to be held. More than anything, to feel someone’s arms around him. He wanted to comfort Peggy and be comforted in return, and suddenly she was there in his arms, tears in the eyes that were hers and not his. He held her against the body that he lived in alone, felt her arms come up around him.

They held each other, separate and together, crying for the memories and the grief that they shared.

* * *

 

Once Steve had carried Peggy back to her bed and said his goodbyes, he wandered again. 

The city felt less unfamiliar now, less overwhelming. Peggy’s memories felt like stories he had heard a long time ago, faded and vague, but they filled up the missing years, and that ache in his chest was a little less painful for it. He walked in Peggy’s footsteps alone, and privately he mourned the world he had known.


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would say I'm sorry for this chapter, but I'm really not. Come yell at me on [ my tumblr](https://witch-of-the-library.tumblr.com) if you like!

 

Things moved very fast, all of a sudden.

The steering wheel was gone, ripped away by the metal arm of the attacker on top of the car, and Steve was stretching out his legs, searching for a way to brace himself as the car flipped: gravity pulled at his body in unfamiliar ways, and his head should have been swimming. He pulled his friends close as the door fell, skidding across the concrete, and then he was standing in the open, with only a moment’s space to bring up his shield before the explosion hit, and he was falling backwards over the railing.

 

The next time his eyes opened, there was the sound of gunfire all around him. He crawled out of the wreck of a flipped bus into the too-bright sun, grabbing his shield. Separated from the others, he ran, shouting at the people on the streets, pointing away from where the fight was happening.

He rounded the corner and there was Natasha, her back pressed against a van, her hand against her shoulder- shot, she’d been shot, and by who wasn’t exactly a mystery because he was levelling a gun at her again as Steve watched.

Steve dashed forward and collided with the man in black, successfully getting his attention. Knocked onto his back, he barely got his shield up in time to block the spit of bullets.

He dodged around the cars, keeping his shield up, waiting for the stranger's ammunition to run out before running forward again.

_How many guns does this guy have_? Steve wondered, and then they were against each other, his shield wrenched from him, his body twisting around the other man's knife. He was fast, strong, everywhere at once: Steve’s awareness of his surroundings narrowed to his opponent, the way he shifted and attacked.

The edges of familiarity dug into his mind as Steve dodged sideways to avoid a knife-swipe and their eyes met. The next second his gaze dropped to the twist of the other man’s waist, whispering his next move, and Steve ducked two haymakers to seize the upper hand, twisting into one kick and then another, diving after the other man as he slammed into the side of a van.

Steve knew before he moved that he would have to be on the defence again, and he shifted his body around the movement, matching the swing of his hand, the shift of their stance, the movement of their right foot- feet- wait-

 

They stopped.

  
  
They breathed. 

 

And then they looked down at themself.

It was a familiar body: they had not been so different, evenly matched for height, for strength, for the way they breathed. But the flesh crawling over their metal arm, that was new and unnatural, the clinging dangling fingernails at the tips and the electric feedback sparking up their nerves, metal and skin twisting together in ways that were never intended.

They turned their attention to the blond hair falling forwards into their face and then to the heavy feeling of kevlar against their shoulders, still frozen by incomprehension. 

Between one breath and another, the panic struck them, sending them stumbling into one of the vans, pressing their back against the cold metal. They tore off the mask covering their mouth, gasping for air as their thoughts whirled around each other.

_Mission-_ [задание]- _report-_ what- how- _error?- no-_ no, this is impossible- [неожиданно]- I am- who?- [оружие], _I am weapon_ , _not_ \- not a weapon- _nothing more_ \- who am I? – [оружие]- I am- _no I, only orders-_ but we – _we, yes, -_ we are- what?

Fusion.

_Weapons cannot fuse_ \- but we are together- _Weapons are not ‘I’ and not ‘we’_ \- but who are we- _mission parameters_ \- calm down- _pain in my chest-_ anxiety, calm down, we feel bad- _we feel, no, we do not feel_ \- yes, calm down, Ste- me, we, us, whoever we are- _who-_

_Steve?_

Familiarity spiked through them, a fragmented memory of a dance that never turned into a fusion, the grey-green canvas of an army tent, a low laugh that shook Steve’s chest, music to Bucky’s ears, a memory seen through two pairs of eyes, and then the two of them were falling apart.

“Bucky?” Steve managed, and now that the mask was off he was wondering how he’d missed it, but the way he moved was so different, the way they had fused was so different, that hadn’t been familiar at all, and-

 

“Who the hell is Bucky?” the stranger asked, and all the air pressed itself out of Steve’s lungs.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Russian translates (hopefully, thanks Google) to 'mission,' 'unexpected,' and 'weapon'.


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's the Tony chapter! (Thank you so much for the comments they are making me thrive)

“Really?”

Tony Stark was a sight to see when he was flustered. He had the kind of blush that crawled up the back of his neck and onto the tips of his ears, the kind of blush that shattered his suave, put-together persona as soon as it appeared. It was awkward, and endearing, and Steve had come to love it. 

“Yeah, I mean, if you’d be- interested.” At the moment, however, Steve was too caught up in his own floundering proposal to admire the red flush on Tony's ears.

There wasn’t any particular reason he’d brought it up, not really, it was just that Tony didn’t seem to be doing so well lately and fusion was one of the ways you could center yourself: the difference between being you- _and-_ someone and being you-alone could help you better feel what it meant to be yourself, and that was helpful to Steve, at least, so he could only hope it would be the same for Tony.

They had fused in a combat situation, but that was different, the purpose-driven fusion from a split-second decision: Tony out of the suit and vulnerable, Steve panicked and diving and suddenly they were together, coming out of the dive into a roll and spinning to face the danger, bouncing back into their own bodies once the attacker was laid out unconscious on the floor.

And maybe part of Steve remembered what it was like, to share a mind with Tony: the electric hum of a thousand thoughts, the way things around him fell into categories automatically, half the room sorted out before he finished ducking a punch, always five places at once. If it had been just Steve, it would have been terrible and overwhelming, but together it had somehow been… good. 

So he had asked to do it again, pacing across the floor of the gym to where Tony was warming up for exercise, and he had watched the red flush crawl over the tips of Tony’s ears.

“We can try,” Tony shrugged, with a strained little smile that Steve hadn’t seen in a while.

“Might be fun,” Steve added, and Tony’s smile got a little more genuine. _There_. Steve let satisfaction bloom in his chest. “We’ll probably look like idiots.”

“That’s how fusion works,” Tony shrugged, and then glanced up at the ceiling. “JARVIS, give us some tunes? Nothing too loud, nothing too old, just give us some middle ground.”

Something synth-heavy came on over the speakers, and Tony sighed. “I guess that works. Alright, capitán, let’s get this fusion party rocking."

“Are you sure?” Tony was doing that snapping thing with his thumbs that he did when he was nervous.

“Might not work anyway,” Tony said, and Steve nodded seriously.

“I want it to,” he said, and Tony’s shoulders relaxed a little bit.

“Well. Yeah. I guess you wouldn’t have asked if you didn’t want it to, huh? Listen, let’s just give this a shot and call it a day, yeah?”

“We can try again later, too,” Steve told him, and Tony relaxed even more, starting to tap a toe to the beat.

“No time like the present, though.” Tony rolled out his neck, and then backed away from Steve a little bit. “We gonna get started or what?”

“Ready when you are.”

Steve took three steps back and bobbed slightly to the music. He always hated this first part, when you were waiting for the other person to make the decision of how fast or slow you were going to dance. But it was a first attempt, he reminded himself. And those were always awful.  

Tony swung his hips in a figure-eight and raised one of his hands over his head, making a circle that moved down his body, rolling his head, his chest, his hips, slow and languid.

Steve forgot to move.

Quirking an eyebrow at him, Tony took one step forwards and then dropped into a pose that should have looked ridiculous, one knee on the ground and his arms wrapped around himself, but instead looked like a dare. 

Steve took a deep breath, listened to the rhythm of the song, and did his best to copy Tony’s movements. It wasn’t totally natural to his body, but he’d always been good at following other people’s techniques, and it was fun to roll out the parts of his body like Tony had, unhurried and exploratory, finding the movement before settling into a higher pose, his hands clasped behind his head.

Tony’s smile widened, and Steve could tell he was finally ready to have fun with this.

Tony pushed himself up from the ground and went into a short series of steps, ending in a spin. Steve watched him closely and copied them in the opposite direction, finishing with two pirouettes and his chin tilted defiantly in Tony’s direction. Tony’s mouth flattened in a challenge.

Steve held out his hand and Tony ducked under it to spin around him, running fast fingers over his back and then appearing at his side, grabbing Steve’s other hand and almost pulling him off-balance before he centered himself and used the new point of connection to take back a bit of control, pulling Tony closer and spinning him around, familiar with his body weight from months of training and combat. Steve knew when Tony’s suits were updated from the shifts in the way he moved, knew when Tony was hiding injuries from the way his knees locked, knew Tony better than he was willing to admit, so he knew how to guide Tony into a dip and then throw him into a spin, and Tony knew how to get his legs underneath him, predicting Steve’s next move with a fierce little grin.

Tony pressed his body against him, tilted his head back against Steve’s shoulder, and then he was gone, running across the workout mats.

Steve moved to the music, keeping his body in motion, knowing what was coming by the way Tony turned to face him, one leg bent like he was waiting for a race to start. Steve gave him the smallest nod, and Tony started to move. Steve spun once more, the lights blurring around him, and he came back to face Tony just as he reached him, putting his hands on Tony’s waist and completing the spin with an extra kick, using the momentum to throw Tony into the air.

Lithe and graceful, Tony spun once in the air and fell back towards Steve, and he opened his arms to greet him, falling together into awareness. 

Fusing outside of fighting felt different, he decided.

His awareness of his body was much more lazy now, as he continued to move to the beat of the song, adjusting to being himself. There was so much that was new, and so much that was familiar: the gym was all lit up with shared memories, and his hands were rough with work. But the feeling in his chest- oh-

He pulled up his shirt and looked down. The arc reactor had changed, the scars around it smoothed out, and the shape of it sunk more into his skin, forming the shape of a star.

 _Typical_ , he thought drily, looking at it. He tapped it inquisitively, and the sound of metal reassured him that all was well.

That drew his attention to the rest of what he was feeling. There was a low-level energy in everything he did, buzzing in his mind and in his fingertips, the remaining adrenaline from fusing and a sweet potential for anything.

“We have to go flying,” he said, then realized it was a little dumb to expect a response from himself and ran out towards the workshop.

The running, that was different too: he wasn’t certain of the way the serum interacted with fusion, but the balance of super-soldier and human left him both uncomfortably aware of his limits, but incredibly tempted to test them.

Would the new arc reactor shape work with the suit? The typical ports weren’t open, would that affect- no, he interrupted himself, it would work fine: the new suits didn’t run on his own arc reactor unless there was an emergency, they were self-sustaining. That wouldn’t be good news if they ran into an emergency, of course, but what was the chance of that?

He ran down the halls, passing Bruce and giving him a grin and a wave. Pride and affection mingled when Bruce just stared at the fusion with a dumbfounded expression, as SteveandTony rounded the corner and made his way into the workshop, skidding to a halt in front of the newest suit.

Part of him wanted to stop and make a new one, redesign something that would fit better around the new star, maybe combine some blue and white into his design, twisting it around the red and gold, but most of him just wanted to go, go, _go_.

So he raised his arms and snapped his fingers and Tony’s suit rose like a tidal wave to meet him, closing around his body.

The suit was new and not-new, and SteveandTony slowed down for his first few steps in it, testing how it responded to his body, how it flexed around him, how it reacted to his slightest movements. And then he was running to the launch pad, his stabilizers already sparking, and he was throwing himself off the tower.

 _Oops_ , he thought, a little embarrassed by his enthusiasm, and then laughed at himself as he flipped around, getting the boosters pointing the right way, and blasting upwards.

Flying was new again, a wonderful flipping in his stomach, the wonder of the wind around him, the weightlessness as he cut the boosters and let his body tumble downwards, the bad memories pressed under the warm weight of someone to share them with. Then he was spiraling back up into the sky with the slightest thought, and _oh_ , he thought, he would have to do this more often, there was so much to feel and so much to learn, so much to know, so much about the way his mind and body fit together that he just wanted to take apart and experience…

But for now he tested the familiar limits of his suit, watched the city spin and blur far below him, and savored the feeling of not being alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some fusions use different pronouns than other fusions! JaneandBetty, in the second chapter, used she/her pronouns but it was only mentioned briefly. Most use they/them pronouns, but SteveandTony just felt right as a he/him fusion. *shrugs*


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's back! One more chapter after this one. Thank you so much to everyone who's commented I'm gonna cry

 

“It’ll work this time,” Steve said. Bucky eyed him across the sparring mats, his shoulders flexing uneasily. 

He was strange, this new Bucky that had come back to the tower, and Steve was starting to get used to him, which was stranger. When Bucky had fallen, and Steve had mourned, he had believed he would never forget who Bucky had been, what his face had looked like, how his hand felt in Steve’s, the way he breathed when he was asleep. But months of Bucky-as-he-was had started to overwrite Bucky-as-he’d-been, and Steve didn’t know quite how he felt about that.

Steve could read him almost as well as they’d been able to read each other as kids, but in such a different way that it was hardly the same familiarity.

Bucky was the same person, but at the same time, he wasn’t. Gone was the easy smiles and the way his hips swayed when he walked. Now his shoulders stayed tense and raised, unless he was settled into a fighting pose, his expression blank and focused. Being visibly on-guard was as close as he came to off-guard, and his expressions were always overlaid with the tight fear of being punished for showing emotion.

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Bucky told him, and his voice was low. Steve had offered a long time ago to fuse with him, and Bucky had refused. Months later, he had asked if it was still an open offer, and Steve had told him it was always open, whenever he was okay with it. Bucky had waited another stretch of time before telling Steve he was ready to try. This was their third attempt, the first having been called off by Bucky part-way through and the second having devolved into awkward slow-dancing that went on for a while before Steve admitted defeat, hating the way that Bucky had let go of him immediately, his face carefully blank.

“We don’t have to try again now,” Steve said. “I’m not going anywhere, we can do it later. We can wait.”

They were circling each other on the mat, as if they were going to spar.

 

When Bucky had first come to the tower, he would only spar with Steve, the serum they shared allowing them to hold their own against each other. Steve remembered how men had stood on the balconies, armed and ready for any indication Bucky had lost his sense of place during the fights. It was a condition that Bucky had insisted on.

But the men were never needed, and after a few weeks, Natasha had pushed Steve aside and stepped into the ring. Bucky had looked from one of them to the other to the men standing by, and then shifted into a slightly different fighting stance.

Steve had stepped back to watch them fight.

It was different from the way Bucky fought with him, but familiar in that it matched the way Steve had seen Natasha fight. They matched each other beat for beat, and for many days Bucky had won, over and over, but Natasha never gave up. Eventually she managed to pin him, and she’d put out her hand. Bucky accepted it, and was pulled to his feet, and Natasha left the ring with sweat-slicked hair and a rare grin across her face, bumping her shoulder against Steve’s as she went.

Months later, Steve had walked into the gym and seen Bucky fighting Tony in his suit, just a week after they had decided the extra safety measures around Bucky’s sparring sessions were no longer necessary. Steve had sat down and watched them fight, listened to Tony rambling on and on about Bucky’s new StarkTech arm as he weaved around it, finally flying up out of the ring and laughing at Bucky’s expression.

“That was cheating,” Bucky had said, and Tony had stepped out of the suit and dropped to the mat in that skin-tight black suit that had multiple twitter accounts dedicated to it.

“You’re on the worst steroids ever, you don’t get to complain about me cheating,” he’d said, and then darted forwards to poke Bucky in the side. Bucky had flinched and brought his hands down from a fighting stance, holding them rigid at his sides, while Tony held his up in the air, grinning. “Just checking reflex response for the new arm,” he’d said, even though his intentions of testing Bucky couldn’t have been clearer. Tony Stark, the man without a survival instinct. Steve had sighed and dropped his face into his hands, and thus hadn’t seen what had made Tony yelp, but when he looked up, Bucky had a full smile on his face, and Tony was holding his side and trying to look stern while he laughed.

Steve had drawn them like that later, the way Bucky’s shoulders had dropped when he laughed, how Tony’s lips had been pressed against each other, trying to hold in his amusement to tease the moment out a little longer.

 

But now Steve was the one who stood across from Bucky, Bucky dressed in black and pacing slow around him as if he was trying to judge his weak spots.

Steve stopped walking and squared his shoulders.

Bucky frowned a little but stopped pacing, and they faced each other across the fighting ring.

“I know we don’t have to,” he said.

“And you want to?”

“If you do.” Steve gave him a hard look for that, and Bucky shrugged. “Yes, alright, I want to try again. Jesus, Rogers.”

“Alright.” Steve took two steps towards him, and held out his hand. Bucky took it, let Steve pull him closer. His body was still shifting with those unnaturally smooth movements.

“Hey Buck?” Steve said conversationally.

“Uh-huh?” Steve put his free arm around Bucky’s back, and Bucky fixed the way he’d been holding his hand, folding them into a proper dancing position and putting his metal hand on Steve’s shoulder. Steve was taller than him now, and tilted his chin down to meet his eyes.

“Do you remember my birthday, the first year after your mum died?”

“We… danced under the bridge? When the fireworks were happening?” Bucky’s face was scrunched up in the way that only happened when he was trying to remember something from before the war. It was one of Steve’s favourite expressions on him, even though it made him sad to hear the way he falteringly repeated the memories, knowing that he remembered them more distantly than Steve did.

“Yeah, we danced, and we fused.”

“It was different,” Bucky said. “It felt different that night. We went dancing, and we… we fused with a girl, right? All three of us.”

“Casey,” said Steve. “Yeah. She was a nice girl, but she ended up with… Izzy, I think her name was.”

“Izzy.” Bucky closed his eyes for a second. They were swaying back and forth now, an almost automatic motion. “You mean Tiana? Black hair, used to paint her lips real dark?”

“That’s the one,” Steve said. “Tiana. I’m bad at girl’s names. But that night, under the bridge, do you remember that?”

“I…” Bucky opened his eyes, but he wasn’t looking at Steve. His gaze was distant.

“We were dancing, just like this,” Steve said, and pulled Bucky just a little bit closer, until their cheeks were brushing against each other. “And we’d snuck away from your friend and his girl, they wanted to watch the fireworks. We could hear them overhead. And I was short, you remember that? You could spin me around like nobody’s business, all over the place, made me laugh.” He spun under Bucky’s arm and back, pleased to see a smile tugging at the corner of Bucky’s mouth before Steve pressed his cheek against his again.

“We could see the fireworks over in Midtown,” Bucky joined in. They were pressed close together, and Steve drank in the feeling of Bucky’s body. It was nice to feel him languid and slow, instead of in shattered bits of impact during their sparring matches. Bucky was so cautious with touch now, so distrusting of himself.

Steve closed his eyes and enjoyed the feeling as Bucky’s voice continued the memory.

“They were all red white and blue, true American spirit all over the town. I could head people cheerin’ up above us, but no one else was down by the river. And then you-“ Steve heard Bucky’s breath catch, and pulled back to look at him. Bucky’s eyes were more expressive than Steve had seen them in a long time, tentative and awed. “Did you-“

“I had to lean up back then, to kiss you,” Steve said, remembering the way his calves had started to burn when one kiss turned into two, and three. “And neither of us knew you could fuse like that, so it was a shock.”

“I remember,” Bucky breathed, and then he was tilting his chin up, and Steve barely had to bend to meet him. Their lips brushed against each other, and Steve couldn’t breathe, his whole world shifting again, just like the first time they had kissed.

Steve drew back after one kiss, and rested his forehead against Bucky’s. “I’m glad you remember,” he told him, and watched Bucky smile.

“I couldn’t forget,” Bucky said. “Not you.” He ran his thumb over Steve’s, and then spun him out under his arm, pulled him back in against him.

“I missed you,” Steve admitted, and Bucky held him just a little bit tighter.

“I know,” he finally said, and they fell in step like it had been their plan all along, a waltz with their feet just a little too close together, their cheeks brushing against each other, stubble rough on Steve’s skin, and then Bucky spun Steve again, laughing at the way he had to duck under Bucky’s arm, and then pulled him back chest to chest, cheek to cheek, swaying back and forth.

“I missed this,” Steve said, and Bucky spun himself out under Steve’s arm with a flourish. Steve turned with him, taken off-guard, and Bucky pressed himself back into Steve’s arms with a grin.

“We’ll have time to get used to it.”

“Yeah.”

Bucky stepped back, took Steve’s hands, changed the dance on him.

Steve stumbled a few times before he remembered the complicated steps they used to do in the dance hall and fell in with Bucky. He could almost hear the song that went along to it, the way the muffled trumpets sounded over the tap of dance shoes, the way the girl’s dresses flared out as they spun each other around over and over, and he and Bucky stopped being different from what they had been and became just what they were, bringing together what had been and what was into a single dance, both of them laughing as Bucky spun Steve one last time around and pulled him right into the meeting of the past and the present and the future, and they closed their eyes in memory and opened them to what was.

They were new, and they were old, and they stood in the center of the room blinking in the glare of the lights. 

They had desires that were unfamiliar, and they were feelings things that they weren’t sure made sense, a light-heaviness, joy and sorrow tangled up in each other so thoroughly that they weren’t really different emotions. Joyandsorrow, fused inextricably like SteveandBucky, filled the space around their heart, pressed at the inside of their head until tears rolled down their cheeks.

It felt coming home to a house that felt smaller than you remembered, to people who were different from before. Things were familiar, but nothing was the same.

“I can’t do this,” they said, and looked down at their hands. Their metal arm had melded better with their skin this time, the metal flashing through in parts, but it didn’t hurt when they curled their hand into a fist.

The memory of the person they had been before was sharp in their chest, and they turned their attention to their other, fully human hand.

They brought them up side by side, and slowly, by some instinct, wrapped them around each other.

_I can do this_ , they thought. _I can be this. I can feel this. I can hold onto this_. The pressure of one palm against the other was the pressure of one body against itself, the same feeling of SteveandBucky together inside them, comforted and comforting, together and singular.

It was nothing they had felt before. It was like every time they had fused: the world was new, and they were new, and nothing would ever be the same again.

They took their first step, their thousandth step, and turned their eyes towards the door. There was a world outside to explore, and they would do it together, just as they always had. The world offered itself to their imagination, harsh and exciting, and they went forward to find their place in it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last lines to this chapter draw from the same poem as the title, Mary Oliver's '[Wild Geese.](http://www.phys.unm.edu/~tw/fas/yits/archive/oliver_wildgeese.html)'


	6. Chapter Six

 

“Steve! Stevie, Stevie!”

Steve turned around, trying to place the voice that was calling his name.

“Steve!” The person slammed into him just after he’d turned around, and Steve wrapped his arms around them, laughing.

“You fused?”

“We fused!” TonyandBucky raised their head, grinning at him. How had he never noticed that they had the same mischievous smile when they were showing off? It looked so natural on their lips.

“You look great,” Steve told them, and it was true. Tony’s beard looked good with a bit of Bucky’s stubble, and their lips were twice as kissable. As soon as Steve glanced down at those lips, they were suddenly against his own, pressing forward with dual enthusiasm. Steve kissed them back and then pushed them away, laughing. “You’re going to be the death of me, you’re too energetic like this.”

“But Steve, I love you,” they countered with that same grin.

“And I love you,” he replied easily, running a hand through their hair, noting that the length was Bucky’s, but it slipped through his hands like Tony’s. “But _you_ seem like a trouble fusion.”

“What can I say? It’s great to be me.” They flicked their hair back in a move that Steve had seen Tony do many times, but with the same wink as Bucky having fun in heels on a late night.

“I can only imagine,” Steve smiled. “How did you fuse?”

“I- or, _we_ were in the living room, and Tony was showing off, you know how I am, and then I thought, I should show him what for, and Bucky came over, and I just thought I’d show him some moves, you know, and then he grabbed me, and we danced, and then… we were me! Can we go to bed now? I’d really like to be in bed with you.”

“I bet you would,” Steve laughed. “Are you going to hold together that long? It hasn’t worked with Bucky and I.”

“Not for lack of trying,” BuckyandTony pouted.

“Alright,” Steve sighed, trying to look put-upon as his partner seized his wrist and dragged him towards the elevators. “But I’m going to be on top so that you two don’t crush me when you unfuse.”

“I’m not _going_ to unfuse,” they claimed, and pushed Steve inside the elevator before claiming his mouth in another kiss.

They kissed with Bucky’s enthusiasm, Tony’s precision. Steve had been surprised to find out that Tony liked to kiss his partners slow, whereas Bucky just dove in every time. “I plan long term,” Tony had said when Steve commented on the difference, and Bucky had snorted from the other side of the room.

Now Steve crumbled under their fused attention, ran his fingers up their back and then into their hair, twisting his fingers into the strands and pulling. They made a sound that made Steve’s breath catch, and then they were kissing again. Steve pushed them over onto the other wall, following them step-for-step and letting them catch at his arms, pulling him against them into another kiss, and pulling their hands into his hair, golden strands catching between their fingers as their lips danced, and then Steve shifted them again, pulling them down and into-

“Oh _shit_ ,” they said, as their hands made contact with the elevator wall. Their lips were still tingling, their body sensitive with adrenaline. “That was _not_ the plan.”

They looked down at their hands, the way that Steve’s rough palms and Bucky’s wide-spread fingers and Tony’s delicate knuckles interacted. Things got a little weird with a three-person fusion, which they all knew from experience, their memories of fun nights and interesting friendships mingling into one memory. This fusion was no exception: a little too much going on, a little too much uncertainty in the way that their bodies interacted.

“Huh.” SteveandTonyandBucky looked up as the elevator door dinged open, and stepped out into the hall. They made their way to one of the rooms, not really minding whose, and stepped inside.

This really hadn’t been the plan. Disappointment tempered by fond amusement dominated their feelings as they flopped down onto the bed. They’d had such big plans too, and things had been going so well in the elevator, but now they were all alone, and all worked up…

They traced a hand down their body, felt their breath catch in their throat, and then pressed the heel of their palm against- Tony bucked up against Steve’s hand, his arm coming up to grip his shoulder.

“Mother _fuck_ ,” said Bucky as he overbalanced on the edge of the bed, catching himself with one arm as he fell to the floor, and Tony and Steve scrambled apart to look down at him.

“Sorry,” they said in unison, and then looked at each other and started laughing.

“I did tell you that you couldn’t stay fused,” Steve pointed out, offering Bucky a hand and pulling him back onto the bed.

“Well _you_ weren’t supposed to fuse with us,” Tony said. “It all would have worked out.”

“It takes two to fuse, Tony. Or- three, I guess.”

“I thought it was fun,” Bucky said, getting himself comfortable on the bed.

“It was,” Steve admitted, leaning back against his chest.

“We should do it again,” Tony said, throwing a leg over Steve’s hips and settling on top of him so that he could look down at them both. “But for now, I think we left something unfinished.”

“I’m tired,” Bucky said, but leaned forwards and pressed his lips to Tony’s, and then Steve’s. “I’m going to bed, but you two have fun, alright? Wasn’t planning on fusing today and it’s a little…” He made a vague gesture by his head, and Steve nodded, catching that hand and kissing the knuckles one by one.

“Text one of us if you want to,” he said, and let him go. Bucky untangled himself from the heap and made his way to the door, glancing back to make eye contact with Steve as Tony slid his fingers under the hem of Steve’s shirt.

“I will,” Bucky promised, and closed the door behind him.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (And they lived happily ever after) 
> 
> Thank you so so much to everyone who commented, they make my day every time I get a notification. 
> 
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